Modern wireless communication systems may operate according to Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards such as the 802.11 standards for Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) and the 802.16 standards for Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (WMANs). Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a wireless broadband technology based on the IEEE 802.16 standard of which IEEE 802.16-2004 and the 802.16e amendment are Physical (PHY) layer specifications.
Wireless communications systems, for example those operating to the IEEE 802.11 and 802.16 standards, may include error-correcting schemes. One such scheme is forward error correction (FEC). FEC is a method of obtaining error control in data transmission in which the source (e.g., a transmitter) sends redundant data and the destination (e.g., a receiver) recognizes only the portion of the data that contains no apparent errors. Because FEC does not require handshaking between the source and the destination, it can be used for broadcasting of data to many destinations simultaneously from a single source.